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Burittos, kitty cats and 3-year olds, oh my! Or, how to get your husband to go to the doctor

Poor Siigo had a rough day yesterday. He got royally beat up by, in order, a 3-year old, a burrito and a kitty-cat.

He was already in bad shape. In Mexico, he got dragged over some rocks by a huge wave, scraping his legs and arms and injuring his shoulder. Not to mention he got a royal talking-to by me for being out there in the huge surf and bringing my 25-year old sister Anna along, whose left butt cheek bore the brunt of the fall, and which – all red and scraped and tender – I had to look at the rest of the trip because she couldn’t put any pants on.

It didn’t help any that the day after we got back from Mexico, he walked in the door looking all dejected with a big cut running from his nose to his cheek. “I got hit by a shovel.”

Oh my god, he got in a fight and somebody wacked him a good one with a shovel! I was mortified. Then he told me the story. He was outside throwing salt on our icy driveway when he threw the big bag of salt down, which landed on the scoop part of a big snow shovel that was leaning against the door, which then made the handle thwack him in the face. Straight out of a cartoon, I tell you. Poor Siigo.

Siig was feeling so battered, he actually went to the chiropractor and got a massage. And he made both appointments himself. This is shocking because Siig normally can not make a doctor or dentist’s appointment to save his life. I have been nagging him for years to go to the dentist, but every time I make an appointment for him something “always comes up” so I have to cancel. No wonder women live longer than men.

Usually, and I know this is terrible to say coming from a wife about her husband, I don’t feel too sorry for Siig when he suffers a minor injury because something as little as a paper cut sends him into a tail spin. Whenever he has a cold, he basically thinks he’s dying. He stubs his toe and begs to be taken to the hospital. So it’s hard for me to judge the true nature of his injury or illness because most of the time I just don’t know if he’s exaggerating or being, well, a typical male. I do believe now that if men were the ones to have babies, we would have zero population growth.

But yesterday, I did start to actually feel sorry for the guy. It began when Kaya, our beautiful but clutsy 3-year old, did a ballet twirl and ended up punching Siig squarely in the nuts, flooring him. He was laying on the floor moaning, “My balls, my balls, they’re not coming down!” I told him, “There, now you don’t need to make a doctor’s appointment about that vasectomy.”

He finally recovered (and I presume his boys dropped back down), when we were driving in the car after grocery shopping and he asked me to hand him his burrito. He took a few bites when all of a sudden he started yelling in pain and clutching his mouth like he was being electrocuted from the outside in, then pulled something out of his mouth. What was it? Did he find a band-aid? (That actually happened to me once.) A finger? A razor blade? Were we going to crash? He pulls out a piece of tinfoil that the burrito was wrapped in and holds it up. The tinfoil had hit the metal in his fillings, causing immense pain. So much for that dentist’s visit.

Back home, our next task was to give our feisty cat Cozmo some medication. Our vet recently discovered that Cozmo’s mouth resembles a war zone – she has lost 70% of her teeth, and what’s left is rotting and infected. Our dentist was so kind as to show my 5-year old Cozmo’s teeth and say, “See, this is what happens when you don’t brush your teeth.” That was worth the $200 bill alone. The vet put her on a week’s worth of antibiotics, which we have to give her orally. Easier said than done. My first try resulted in the bottle of medicine spilling all over the coffee table and only about half getting in Cozmo’s mouth. So the next time, Siig – even though he’s allergic to the cat – selflessly said he would help. I had to hold Cozmo while he stuck the dropper in her mouth. But as soon as we got into position, the squirmy cat swiped Siig’s hand, sticking a claw deep into his thumb. Siig howled in pain and jumped up and down. “Oh my god, oh my god. This is the worst pain ever!” He was sure that he found a piece of Cozmo’s claw in the wound. I told him cats are not like bees – they don’t leave a stinger in their victim and then die. (Although that would save us the $500 bill to clean and extract her teeth. Don’t worry, I’m kidding. Sort of.)

I thought Siig had finally thrown in the towel and was probably going to go hide in a cave somewhere, when I heard him calling my name from the mudroom. “Come on, I’m ready. Let’s do this thing.” He walked back into the house wearing his one-piece snowmobile suit, gloves and a helmet. He looked like one of those guys from a haz-mat spill. “I’m not going to let a little pussy get me down.”

That’s my boy.

“See,” I said, “life is like sex – a little protection goes a long way.”

Now if I can just convince him that he can wear the full-body suit to the doctor, maybe he’ll actually keep an appointment.

3 thoughts on “Burittos, kitty cats and 3-year olds, oh my! Or, how to get your husband to go to the doctor”

I agree. MEN! My husband has to be tricked to go to the doctor. He has a very high pain tolerance. And so the last time he voluntarily went to the doctor? Ended up having a ruptured appendix and had to have emergency surgery. Last time he voluntarily went to the dentist? Had to have a tooth crowned. I would punch him in the nuts but … IT WOULDN’T HURT HIM DAMMIT.